Reflections on art [Making] + Life [Living]
A few years ago, I heard about a dance performance that took place in the 1980s. It was staged during a benefit auction in downtown Billings over Valentine’s Day and involved eight dancers in white wedding dresses dragging red tulle fabric around and walking up to people attending the event and whispering, “he must be here somewhere.” It sounded like a hybrid performance art event and delightfully avant garde, even for today. And when I heard it ended with one of the dancers on a table wrapped from head to toe in the red tulle in a ritual fashion it reminded me of feminist artists like Judy Chicago and the Guerilla Girls. This piece was choreographed by Fredlund with Lovec and Loos as two of the eight dancers.
I wondered what other stories I might be missing.
“From the first communications for Re-(w)Rite, Krista and I have been united in a desire to decisively turn away from the traditional narrative of this particular ritual and rewrite it for a 21st (or 22nd?) century society. Casting off notions of virgins and elder men, pagan and the divine, even sacrifice as death came easily to me. It feels somewhat vulgar to admit that it was much more difficult for me to connect to our ecological framework of Re-(w)Rite, even though intellectually and politically I fight to combat climate change. Why do I not feel the pull of Mother Earth? Why does she remain abstract, even as I connect to dance; one of the oldest forms of human-nature communion? To begin to understand my perceived failure, and in order to express through movement, I had to focus in on Earth as Mother as Woman horribly abused. When I think about my own battle with femininity and the desire to imagine new modes of being in the world, I begin to consider how Earth as Mother as Woman also desperately needs newly imagined futures” (Erica Gionfriddo).
I spent last evening talking to a psychiatrist. A woman I've grown to know through ballet and is a childhood friend. She has accomplished so much in her career and currently works with high risk patients in our community with a compassion and resilience I've never witnessed before. I admire her steadfast commitment to clients she obviously cares about; encouraging her patients to 'stay one more day' and tirelessly seek out new or different treatment even when they're tired of 'trying'.
Let's sharpen the pencil a bit. In Dance Matters, Part 1 I talked about how dance is more than an art form, it's the expression, artistry, and often historical record of the people that carved their form of dance into existence. I also compared dance to a language, a form of communication, of storytelling. Knowing one language or only reading one book is a fraction of light shining in a complex kaleidoscope of culture and history. I'm pretty sure not everyone dances the same. In the words of Deborah Hay an experimental choreographer and postmodern dancer, "Why not loosen things up a bit and play with the possibilities?" But how can we do that if we don't also support diverse programming? I think about how much dance has to offer when we can meet another culture through their dance art. It's a form of a listening, and listening fosters empathy, increased awareness, and raises consciousness. Those all sound pretty good to me.
Dance taught me about the world, about a portion of history, about other cultures, and about my own, in ways a text or a lecture could never do. Because it’s not just dance. It’s the woven histories of the people who carved their art-form into existence, and those weren't always joyous origins. To know your ‘family’ lineage as a dancer is part of honoring the history just as much as the form itself. As a young dancer, I was aware of the cultural legacy that Jazz, for example, holds in our country's narrative, and that’s only one in the entire world! I think about how Flamenco, Russian Character, Hip Hop, that one Krump class, Swing, Butoh, and so many other styles of dance have made an impression on how I interpret the world beyond my little bubble.
This is my offensive, my clandestine effort to challenge a fate that lives inside me; part of recognizing how stress affects my brain is slowing down enough to listen. The deeply coiled horror that was my young years, witnessing my father unravel in front of me is a story of its own. My journey to tend my own story is just beginning.
I recently had to renew my driver’s license and while digging for some documents, I picked up a folder and sat down with Joe’s old Washington driver’s license. Of all the photos of Joe, his expression in his driver's license captures me. It was issued in April of 1996 at the age of 27, staring straight at you with a gentle smile. Joe is my brother in law.
We are just returning from a wonderful adventure in the Montana winter landscape, we played in the snow and the rivers (yes IN the rivers - and I am still warming up). I'm now settling in for a month of art creation and reflection and observed my patterns and rituals to get ready for such tasks. While many of those tasks involve cleaning and organizing - it's a bit more than that. I've created a daily choreography, a literal and metaphorical 'house cleaning' that is a necessary part of my art practice.